In 2014, a major revitalization project began to change Sunset Park. Next to the neighborhood’s decommissioned piers and shipyards, new occupants started to replace the multitude of adult video stores and industrial warehouses near the shore. Industry City opened, and along with it came a rash of expensive food options with odd operating hours. Micro Center, a Best Buy competitor, opened its doors (with a Bed Bath & Beyond due to join it in the coming months).Once-occupied buildings were being reoccupied by newer, hipper tenants willing to pay a lot more. For a place that kept quiet for the last decade or so, it sure was making its fair share of noise.

Among the new retail chains and makeshift EDM venues, however, was a small piece of heaven tucked away behind condemned warehouses and leftover trolley tracks. After decades and planning and two years of building, Bush Terminal Park quietly opened its gates in November of 2014 on the corner of 43rd Street and 1st Avenue. Yet nearly two years later, residents living in proximity to the park still do not know of its existence. (more…)

60,000 square feet at Industry City goes a long way, and all you need to be happy is a little corner of it. via Facebook

As coffee shops lose their luster for the cheaply-minded, ever-Skyping freelancer, coworking spaces are becoming more and more of an attractive long-term option. We want to know that we can go somewhere where there will always be wi-fi, where the coffee and tea is endless if we deem it so, and where no one will bother us if we need to have a quiet e-meeting.

Now, there are a few coworking spaces around Sunset Park, but nothing categorically useful in that neighborhood for laptop users. But soon, that’s going to change: Crain’s New York reports that courtesy of Milk Studios, Sunset Park will be getting a bonafide co-working space of its very own! (more…)

Sunset Park is the largest of Brooklyn’s Chinatowns. Yep, there’s more than one. Follow this guide and discover what to see, where to go and what to eat, and you’ll quickly fall in love with the bright and dizzying culture. Whether it’s the incredibly cheap produce or the inexpensive snacks, there is sure to be something that you’re going to want to purchase — but the people-watching and window -hopping game is strong in this neighborhood, so even just a couple bucks is enough to make a day of it. (more…)

Fortunately, the chocolate doesn’t have the bitter taste of this argument. via Facebook

Brooklyn’s been going through a lot of changes–some cool, some lousy–but we’ve always been able to take comfort in the fact that chocolate will always be there for us, right? But what if chocolate is part of these changes? Et tu, cocoa? That’s apparently what’s been going down in Sunset Park since Li-Lac Chocolates, a 100-year-old New York City chocolate factory, moved in and was accused of gentrifying the place. (more…)

In the making for over a decade, the planned Bush Terminal Piers Park in Sunset Park is finally here after years of heavy-duty clean-up and plenty of delays, according to DNAinfo.

The brand new Bush Terminal Piers Park opened yesterday, bringing with it a pair of multi-purpose soccer and baseball fields, and even a nature preserve, all stretching from 43rd (where the entrance is) to 51st street along the waterfront in a neighborhood that sorely needed more space to run around with your arms over your head while screaming “I’m in a park!” (more…)

If you lived here, you’d have no excuse for late fees. via Macauly Honors College

New York City could use some housing that people can actually afford. New York City could also use modern, functioning libraries. Now, in a stroke of mashed-up genius not seen since the maniacal Dr. Reese’s combined peanut butter with chocolate, DNA Info reports that one non-profit is suggesting that the Sunset Park branch of the Brooklyn Library be redeveloped into a new library with affordable housing on top of it that starts at $525/month. It’s no Sour Patch Kids house, but that’s actually great news. (more…)

Maybe the place where you live has a cool cemetery that people like talking about, and that’s great. Is it as cool as Green-Wood Cemetery, which played home to the Battle of Brooklyn and is home to many of the fathers of baseball, tons of Civil War veterans and Samuel Morse? Probably not, especially because it’s not like every cemetery has John Turturro filming videos full of cemetery factoids about them. He did it for Green-Wood though, so we’ll just stop writing here and instead allow you to learn all about Brooklyn’s coolest cemetery from Jesus Quintana himself.

Fortunately, you won’t have to walk through an x-ray machine to see the art. via chashama

Brooklyn, a culmination of creative minds from all over the world, supported by the city and its people, creative thinkers and doers alike have come together and have proudly built a community of exquisite taste, a culture of art and artists of all different kinds, and next weekend you can get a peek into this world and the processes along the way to creating this world of art, for free, on a tour of artist studios in Sunset Park’s Brooklyn Army Terminal. (more…)

Go up Sunset Park’s hill a bit and play ball with all the locals, while they still exist. Photo by Dave Rosado

Following through on his campaign promise to do so, Mayor de Blasio is ready to funnel $100 million into some heavy duty development in Sunset Park, planned for the Brooklyn Army Terminal, Industry City and Liberty View Plaza which includes high-budget sequels to DUMBO and the Chelsea Market.

Affectionately known at one point as Gunset Park by those who grew up there (like me), and slapped by those who lived in neighboring sections of Brooklyn with the derogatory moniker Gunset Park, it’s is still a place where you can get some of New York’s best bahn mi and tacos, and where you can enjoy an amazing view of Manhattan from the highest point in Brooklyn, in the actual park itself. Sunset Park is, for now, still known as an affordable place that’s just barely resisted the fast moving gentrification of Murray Hill East, Park Slope and countless other neighborhoods. Now though? It’s on the fast track.

In case you haven’t visited Sunset Park before, might I suggest you do so now, while it’s still in its twilight days? This way, when the transformation to Sunset Park 2.0 is complete and nobody will be able to afford to live there anymore, you can at least say that you saw it before the change over to yet another place people write stupid hacky lazy hipster-related jokes about. Make sure to hit up some of these old local favorites now, before they’re bulldozed to make room for luxury housing. (more…)

It’s always a bad idea to give people access to things they might like, such as clean water, electricity and a myriad of transportation options, because then if you have to take it away, they’re gonna be pissed. It’s the If You Give A Mouse A Cookie lesson of government, and the people of Rockaway and Sunset Park are gonna start living it in November, because the commuter ferry that’s been running from the Rockaways since Sandy and Sunset Park since last year is going to stop for good in October according to DNA Info. (more…)